The present invention pertains to mobile storage systems including driving assemblies for moving mobile storage units across a floor surface.
Mobile storage systems have been developed in order to maximize the amount of available storage space in a minimum amount of floor space. When storage units, such as shelves or the like, are arranged in a typical fashion, much of the floor space is lost due to the provision of aisle space between each row of shelves in order to permit access to the stored material. Since most of the aisle space is not in use at any given time, mobile storage systems have been developed to more effectively use the available floor space. Generally, mobile storage systems fill the floor with rows of shelving units or the like so that only a single aisle is provided in the entire storage area. Access to the material stored upon a particular unit is facilitated by moving certain of the mobile shelving units so that the one aisle provided is now adjacent the unit having the stored material to be retrieved.
These systems initially were designed so that the mobile storage units were moved manually by the worker. However, this proved to be a cumbersome task and virtually impossible with large mobile storage units. Hence, many drive assemblies have been developed for assisting the movement of each unit. Although these systems have eased and quickened the procedures for retrieving stored material, they have also been of a very complicated nature involving a high number of parts. This multiplicity of parts, in turn, greatly increases the manufacturing and purchase cost. Furthermore, many of these systems, in part due to their complexity, are susceptible to disrepair and high maintenance requirements